Is it Time for a media morph?

The Wall Street Journal ran a nice little scooplet earlier Tuesday to the effect that Time Warner is ready to explore reducing its cable TV holdings and essentially move further down the road toward becoming an Internet company. An act of crazy desperation? I don't think so.

Whether that means investing even more in AOL or buying another big Web name is unclear but Time Warner's suits are reading the writing on the wall. And they understand how their business is being transformed by the Internet. That's why they're seriously considering taking Time Warner into a very different future. To wit: what with the growing availability of TV and film offerings, why does TWX need a "traditional" distribution pipe, such as cable or satellite TV anyway?

It's only coincidence, but the Web 2.0 Expo is taking place this week in San Francisco. Beyond the obvious irony, the fact is that the Web 2.0 movement embodies the rejection of the old command-and-control models of content creation and distribution that benefited companies like Time Warner.

Another irony: the folks at Accenture have issued a new study that concludes that media companies are scared witless of the Web 2.0 challenge. The survey found a consensus for the proposition that user-generated content looms as one of the media and entertainment industry's biggest threats.

Only 3 percent of the executives surveyed thought the use of social media was a fad that will pass in time. No doubt those are the same folks who thought the Internet was fated to go the way of the hula hoop.

The media landscape is changing--fast--in ways that few of us can predict. The one safe prediction: things will look starkly different five years' hence. Time Warner may be the first big media conglomerate to decide it's time to morph. My hunch is it won't be the last.